This could also include Visayas and Mindanao but here on liP the responses I receive I’ve found that to not be true, as perfection reigns supreme outside of Luzon, as I learned last week when I spoke of brownouts on the Philippine archipelagoes. But this does occur on the “Big Island”
Here on Luzon washing machines are still not in vogue, I purchased a New Maytag in Olongapo in 1995 and found that there was no repairman on the Island, Not that it mattered as had I checked with my wife I would have found that it was not needed or wanted. Hand washing was the one true way to clean your clothes; no machine could come close to doing the job. But the rinse and spin cycle was most desirable.
15 Years passed and the Maytag, at last, bought the farm and was stripped for parts and sheet metal and the electric motors went on to a new and happy life. All because there was no Maytag Repairman on Luzon, I could have imported a repairman from Guam, but the cost was prohibitive.
Well lucky me I’m out from under the pressure to replace it. Neigh not so, I found out, they might not wash but again the merits of rinsing and spinning are still the desired function. I mentioned the P 6,000.00 machines that perform this service, as I’ve seen them carried up and down the streets of my purok from one house to another. I was informed politely: “Hell No!”
This was the new millennium in 2010 and a washer was required at the house on a Bataan Mountain, to rinse and spin…Never Wash!
Off in search of a new Maytag? I already knew about that poor lonely guy that has never been to our land of enchantment. But I saw a large washer from Japan, PANASONIC made of high impact plastic (Won’t Rust like a Maytag) and the capacity was (Count ‘em) 14 kilos which I found out was a lot. And the repairman from Japan was living on the Island of Luzon. (Or a Pinoy trained by that guy from Japan)
I’m sorry but I did not inquire about Visayas and Mindanao since I assumed nothing there ever breaks down and no repairman was ever needed. All right I’ll stop poking fun at Visayas and Mindanao. But is it true that Unicorns live there? I’m done, I promise.
The Panasonic is still chugging along rinsing and spinning and I’ve received no request (Read as demand) for a new one yet.
Back to Maytag, the day I bought the Maytag washer in 1995 I bought the matching dryer, I had just come off a ship and was overloaded with cash. The dryer was looked at with skepticism but when I requested that all my towels be machine dried vice stiff cardboard towels coming off the clothesline, the dryer became a popular item, and our two daughters sang it praise to the rooftops. Now we moved to our new house where it was something called 220 single phase and could not be broken to 110 also. Let me explain, I hire electricians I am not one so any information about electricity will pass over my head as would a Scud Rocket.
Oh my, the dryer won’t work on the mountain. So a few years passed and a shipboard electrician was visiting and asked about the dryer I did my best to explain something I knew little about. He laughed and said I notice you have tools; do you have a 220 to 110 converter? Why yes I do!
We only need it to run the control panel all else is 220. Fifty minutes later the Maytag was humming along drying clothes after a seven-year rest hiatus. By The Way; it is still working, and Mayang would now never want to live without one.
We do create our own monsters. (LOL) Point of fact, the dryer is used more in the rainy season than in the dry season, and I like sheets fresh off the line.
Now to clear up a point, Mayang does her own laundry and hires an assistant every week to help her, she is the talk of the Barangay because she does her own washing unlike the other rich woman down the street. Me I’d hire someone, but know there are things that I should never get involved in. This is one!
In Puerto Rico, this single guy would drive up to the door of a laundry and drop off a bag, and that afternoon pick-it up washed, folded and some on hangers. My uniforms I dropped off on the base dry cleaner. The Philippines (ON LUZON) now are have drop [off laundry service. Its time has come!
On my first visit to Iligan City, Mindanao in 2008, not far from the entrance to a major tourist attraction I saw 2 women washing clothes near a stream and they were soaping the clothes and beating them on rocks. First time I ever saw something like that and at the time I thought is was part of the tourist attraction. After that I found that most people do their clothes washing by hand and some use wash boards like the one my grandma used to have.
What really attracted my interest was when I found those all plastic washing machines in an appliance store. I still want to see what is inside of those some day. I was able to see one in action, no agitator in the middle of the basket, it reverses direction from time to time to give the clothes a good slosh. There is a fill and empty knob so I guess there is no water pump. The deluxe models had twin tubs where one was for spin drying. I grabbed one with both hands and lifted it a couple of inches off the showroom floor to see how heavy it is, it could be easily carried by one person LOL .
As I remember I think the single tub model sold for the equivalent of about $100 USD. I am not sure if they are available here in the USA so maybe someday I’ll bring one home with me from a visit to PH. Yes, I have both 120 and 220 available in my house.
Bob (NY)
The first question I have is why you would want one, they don’t do a good job, and that’s why you fond those ladies at the river. (LOL) Those rinse spin machines have been around for a while, but like a Maytag in the 1950’s only a few could afford them.That is why they are carried from house to house. My wife still knows that hand washing is the one true way. I shut up and wear them.(LOL)
Hi Paul,
The only reason I would like to have one is out of curiousity to see what is inside of them and how they work LOL.
I think Maytag has actually been manufactured here in the USA by Whirlpool for many years as they also make the ones under the Sears Kenmore brand. I have had a Kenmore washing machine for well over 20 years and it still works just fine. I took a quick look on Amazon and sure enough those plastic ones are available here and as some of the negative reviews indicate, you get what you pay for LOL.
Bob (NY)
Sears Steel Belted tires were made by Michelin their hand tools by Craftsman and there motor scooters by Cushman. Kenmore were also a store brand , but I don’t know who made them. Hell Sears sold kit houses delivered to your lot with a free hammer and a set of plans. I heard Sears was gone now?
Sears is in the state of going, going, but not quite gone yet. Some of their stores have closed. Others has reduced their size. I think the craftsman brand has been sold off and maybe the same for kenmore which I think can now be found on Amazon but still available in remaining Sears stores. Whirlpool makes appliances for Sears under the Kenmore brand. Whirlpool also owns Maytag.
Bob;
Think of all the kids in the US that won’t have the excitement of the Sears Christmas Catalog a couple of months before Christmas. That is truly sad!
Hi Paul –
On Luzon, where there is a river, there is a barrio, and where there is a barrio, there are people who go to the river to wash their clothes.
Never mind that this is the 21st century; the womenfolk of my barrio Salaza still wash their clothes in the Salaza river, just as their mothers and grandmothers did before them since pre-Spanish times.
The preference for washing clothes in the river is not just about following a time-honored tradition, nor eschewing the advances of modern machinery – it just is the practical and preferred method in barrio Salaza.
Moreover, washing clothes in the river as a group affords an opportunity for a get-together for a much sought-after social event, second only to weddings, where the women catch up on the latest gossip such, for example, as the previous night’s elopement of the Barangay Kapitan’s beautiful daughter with a guy the Kapitan disapproved of because the guy is just a simple peasant.
They know nothing about rinse and spin, of course, but they do believe that washing dirty clothes by hand in the river with the aid of washing bats to beat the dirt out and hanging them out to dry, exposed to the ultraviolet rays of the sun, is more effective at killing germs than throwing them into a clothes dryer perfumed with sheets of Bounce.
Within this context, is it any wonder that the Maytag man is the loneliest person on Luzon? 🙂
John;
I would wonder what was added to the river upstream and the pollution flowing downstream from the laundry soap. But my grandmother did it the same way in Ireland in the 1800’s and no doubt in many rivers in the United States during the same time period. Close to my Son-in-Laws farm they wash in the river, but I promise my daughter and granddaughter don’t. (LOL)
Paul and John,
There is a passage in a book by one of the Thomasite teachers who came to Solano in the early 20th century. John recommended the book to me years ago. The teacher describes walking by the river and seeing Juan, his labandero washing his shirts in the river. the teacher walks farther upstream and sees families bathing their children in the river, and tossing waste water into it. Farther up, the carabao were relaxing in the stream. Still farther, a piggery drained into the river. The teacher became concerned about his shirts being washed downstream. But he consoled himself with the thought that Juan would dry the shirts on the rocks under the beneficial sunlight.
Take care,
Pete
Pete;
It strikes me that the teacher and Juan just didn’t care., I’ll wager in Canada the teacher ate yellow snow too. (LOL)
Hi Paul
I’m guessing Maytag is the make of the washing machine but I have never heard of it, but a story popped into my mind when I read yours and by the way which is totally unrelated.
A lady goes into a vacuum cleaning shop and asks the assistant for a Hoover, sorry ma’am he says we don’t have any to which she replies that the shop is full of them. No ma’am the assistant says they are all Phillips. Ok, old and dry I know, I know…..
Just thought I would share that on a Monday morning.
Jack;
And a fine guess it would be, Maytag is a US brand and has been for many decades going back before WW-II. My grandparents and my parents plus I have owned one, the problem was they were built so well they never broke down. Hence the joke about the lonely repairman.
Since I served with sailors from the UK and the Australian Navy and visited both countries and saw Maytags for sale I’m surprised you had never heard of them. But then I never heard Vegemite or plum pudding until I joined the US Navy. I’ll assume Philips bought out the former US brand Hoover? I remember when the Mini-Cooper, Jaguar and Rolls Royce were once British company’s before they became German owned. The way of the world now.
Maytag is one of the top brands of washing machines in the USA and has been for decades. They are expensive but you will have it for 25 years or more.
BOB (NY)
That is a fact, I still have the dryer from 1995 chugging away out back. (Praise the lord!)
Paul,
A dryer should would come in handy now as it has been raining heavy off and on since last Wednesday and clothes are having a hard time drying. So i told Anne when we finally buy our house we will have a dryer for rainy season. As far as washing clothes by hand, Anne says clothes wear out faster plus her hands can’t handle the scrubbing by hand. When we do get a dryer it will be a Maytag.
PapaDuck;
I agree with Anne about hand washing, why should she?
Hand washing will wear out the clothes, except with new jeans. On the ships we would put them in a net bag and drag them behind the ship for two days to age them.
As I said above I have no idea why Mayang still does the laundry, I stopped washing the car and now just pay someone to do it. She should follow that good example I set. (lol)
No repairmen in the Philippines? Are you crazy? Pinoys can repair ANYTHING!
Tom;
Then I wonder why they couldn’t repair the one I had.
My grandmother in the early 50’s had a washing machine that was also a dryer. My late wife said her grand mother has one as well. Then they went the way fo the dodo in the US, as someone decide two machines were better than one, and now we have the washer/dryer combo.
So I see machines in Europe on my business trips that both wash and dry. They now sell them in the US. I bought one when refurbishing my upstairs bathroom and installed it there. No more carrying everything downstairs to wash/dry and then carry them back upstairs to put away. It was fairly expensive, $1500 I think, but for two people it is ideal. For just me it’s even better.
Any idea if they have these in the RP? I’m trying to move to Cebu next year.